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"Life, we learn too late, is in the living, the tissue of every day and hour."
-Stephen Butler Leacock

How quickly time comes and goes. What was now, here but a moment ago is now yesterday. Just five months ago I was a withdrawn and fearful person. I was terrified to be touched, afraid always that I would be hit, beaten , hurt by the people around me. I was slowly dying under the strangling weight of my own fears and old habits.

Bus ticket in hand, I took a chance, to see what really going on in the upstairs gym. I wanted to run away from college, from the sudden responsibility and loneliness that had come to me. I learned a life lesson, one that I am still learning from and will to continue to until the day I leave this world. I learned to live. To trust. I had to trust, I had to have faith in my self and my partners. Staying closed and tense was not a healthy or logical choice.

I learned to let go.

And in letting go, I finally touched down and held onto the world that I had abandoned. I am different person then I was then, I am no longer afraid to be touched. I made it through a huge seminar, with oddles of new and interesting Ukes and Nages . Never once did I run away.

You see someone once told me that "An epiphany is a cosmic two by four"

Quite the reawakening..

I look back and smile. I cried, I screamed, I raged and I made it through one of the toughest times of my life. Those tears I shed have brought me here, and I am proud. I know that I am so much more then I ever thought I could be. I know that the future is waiting for me, and will always be there.

I am not afraid anymore.

I will face up to those whom I have issues with and work it out. I will not run away from Aikido on the part a single person. Aikido is a part of my life, a part of my day and my spirit. Those who are closest to me understand why I do this "crazy art". My soon to be husband encourages me to strive and continue on, for he too practiced Aikido. My family is happy and proud, and accepting who I have become.